


Smother

by gumbiecat



Category: Der Wacholderbaum | The Juniper Tree (Fairy Tale), Original Work
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumbiecat/pseuds/gumbiecat
Summary: Once there was a woman, and a husband, and a juniper tree. The woman wanted a baby and the tree gave her one.And when she finally saw her child she was so happy she died.A retelling ofThe Juniper Treethat I ended up being very proud of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a class and ended up really liking it and wanting to share it. So here you go.
> 
> Warning for mentions of suicide, violence, and one instance of strong language.

Southern shame  
Is a hell of a drug.  
My step-grandmother married into it,  
Married a man whose first wife committed suicide  
And whose three daughters she couldn’t stand  
Southern shame is special  
Thick and heavy like cement-textured gravy  
Smother biscuits, smother chicken, smother yourself in a little white house full of mirrors and crosses  
We’re all good Christians here  
And if you didn’t see it then of course it never happened.  
And if it did happen it wasn’t your fault.  
And if it was your fault then your son/daughter/stepdaughter is just being melodramatic and it wasn’t that bad, really. 

But none of that matters  
As long as no one sees.  
Because if no one sees,  
It didn’t happen. 

Is southern shame what drove all those  
Wicked stepmothers  
To do what they did?

Once there was a woman  
And a husband  
And a juniper tree and  
The woman wanted a baby and the tree  
Gave her one.  
And when she finally saw her child she was so happy she

Died. 

Which seems a funny way to go.  
Maybe she had Santa Barbara Syndrome,  
Thinking moving to a place, having a baby,  
Would fix her life.  
Fix her fucked up head.  
And it didn’t.  
So.  
She left. 

(smother yourself in graveyard soil)

The boy grew up and his father married a  
Wicked Stepmother,  
Because what other kind is there  
And they lived in Stillwater, Oklahoma  
With the stepmother’s daughter Marlene who  
The boy actually quite loved. 

Siblings can look past blood ties.  
Southern shame cannot. 

They had fried chicken and church on Sundays and the smothered  
Suffocated  
first wife  
Rotted in the ground under the juniper tree  
And waited. 

One day the Wicked Stepmother—  
Capital W, capital S—  
Cut off her stepson’s head with a wooden chest  
(He had bad blood, crazy blood,  
What else was she supposed to do—raise him? People would think  
There was something wrong with /her/)—  
She cut off his head  
And set him upright with an apple in his hand and said to her daughter Marlene,  
“Go and ask your brother for an apple, and  
Shake him if he doesn’t respond”

(southern shame is genetic, blame yourself so i don’t have to)

Marlene shook her brother and his head came off  
Of course  
And her mother said, “Now look what you’ve done,  
You’ve killed your brother, but no one  
Has to know.  
I will keep your secret if you help me fry him up for dinner,  
We’ll tell your stepfather he’s chicken and eat the evidence all up with gravy and biscuits.”

Southern shame is genetic, and shame  
Comes from fear, _what if someone finds out_ —  
So Marlene agreed. 

They cooked the brother up,  
Battered and fried him and  
Served him with biscuits and gravy.  
And his father said it was the finest meal ever served. 

Marlene, after dinner  
Wrapped her brother’s bones in linen and lace  
And buried them under the juniper tree

(smother me in the soil, sister,  
i can’t breathe so let me rest)

And she cried 

(i can neither breathe nor rest)

and went to bed. 

 

That night, something crawled out of the ground, something that was  
And wasn’t the brother,  
And it, the dead thing, took the form of a bird

The next morning it sang:

_My mother she killed me_  
My father he ate me  
Marlene wrapped my bones up in linen and lace  
My mother is frightened  
My father uncaring  
The juniper tree is my last resting place. 

The dead thing sang it all over town,  
All over Stillwater,  
And everyone

Heard. 

(smother my family in shame, i have nothing left to lose)

The dead thing that looked like a bird got hold of:  
A necklace,  
A pair of shoes,  
And a millstone

From the people of Stillwater who didn’t want to see what it truly was,  
Who said, “Oh, what a pretty bird with a pretty song,  
Take this token and leave us with this fiction.”  
And as soon as it left gossip flew  
Faster than electricity  
And the whole town knew in an hour.

So the dead bird went home  
And sang outside the door: 

_My mother she killed me_  
My father he ate me  
Marlene wrapped my bones up in linen and lace  
My mother is frightened  
My father uncaring  
The juniper tree is my last resting place. 

_O mother, come face me_  
O father, embrace me  
Marlene, come see what your dear brother’s become  
Now the whole town knows  
Now the whole town sees  
Our shame stretched out tight like the skin of a drum. 

When the stepmother heard this, she was  
Of course  
Very, very frightened 

(smother me with cruel words like heavy blankets)

She tore at her hair as the father ran outside—

The dead thing that looked like a bird gave him a necklace for his trouble.  
An apology for existing, a  
Small golden embrace. 

He went back inside and it was Marlene’s turn,  
She ran out and—

The dead thing that looked like a bird gave her shoes  
Little red slippers like her favorite movie

(Once, in the tornado cellar, Marlene had whispered to her brother that she wished the house would be picked up and taken away and leave their parents behind, and he did too  
He wanted an Oz, a Neverland, just for the two of them—) 

Marlene squealed and put them on and went back inside. 

And the dead thing sang and sang until its stepmother  
Who couldn’t take it, couldn’t  
Stand her imperfections put on display

(if no one sees them they don’t exist)  
(they exist they exist and everyone knows what you did)

Ran outside and—-

 

Bang!  
The dead thing dropped the millstone on her head. 

(what did she expect to happen?)

When she was dead the dead thing turned back into Marlene’s dear brother, and Marlene and his father ran out and hugged and kissed him and promised everything would be better

And they all went inside and ate dinner while a coyote and a raccoon fought over the stepmother’s corpse in the yard. 

(smother me in graveyard soil before i am ripped apart)

They stayed in Stillwater, Oklahoma,  
And some said the thing that might have been the brother was a demon from hell  
And some said it was an angel  
And some thought it really was the brother, but—

He was different.  
Crueler, quicker to anger, vicious in his triumph

Until the good people of Stillwater started saying, “He’s really just like his stepmother, bless her heart.”


	2. Announcement

I'm going to delete this in a couple days, but I just wanted to let the people following me know that I'm changing my username so you're not too surprised. I decided to make greatveiledbear the name I use for stuff I'd be okay with an employer seeing, so I'm changing this account to the name gumbiecat, to match my personal tumblrr (which is actually @gumbie-cat, but Ao3 doesn't allow hyphens). Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. <3


End file.
